28 Feb. 1946 Point five is that the only provisions Japan requested to have changed were such minor points that it was not even necessary to discuss it with Ribbentrop, but could be taken up directly by the men who were drawing up the text of the treaty. Q. General, I am just a little bit puzzled. Yesterday in your statements regarding the handling of these communications between Berlin and Tokyo and Tokyo and Berlin you indicated that it was all done in a comparatively fast time. I believe you stated that the treaty itself was ready some time on the 10th of December. When you compare this example of speed in such matters with the delay experienced in the United States with respect to messages from Japan on the date hostilities started - in the latter case it took a long time to decode the message and transmit it to the authorities in Washington - I do not understand how there was so much delay in Washington and such haste in Berlin. That is the reason I questioned you about that yesterday. A. I do not know what the reasons are for the delay in Washington, although I have heard that there was a delay. Perhaps the message to the State Department was a long one, whereas ours was a very simple thing. Q. Also, General, at the time of the negotiations relative to the surrender you will recall that there were several days that were used in transmitting messages and decoding them and that the reasons for the lapse of time were charged to the time that it required to send these messages and decode them. If it took so much time then, how could you do it so fast when you were concluding this No Separate Peace Pact? A. I can only say that this pact was consummated with unprecedented speed in Japan. I do not believe that there ever was a case when things went so fast. Q. As a matter of fact, before December 8, was not there some sort of understanding between the Japanese Government and the German Government and the Italian Government relative to a pact such as this one that you consummated on December 11, 1941? A. If you mean by that, was there a text drawn up beforehand, the answer is no. The text is such a simple thing that an expert should be able to draw it up in five minutes. Q. I am not particularly concerned with the text, but there must have been some sort of understanding between the three nations that could have existed, not reduced to any type of writing? A. Italy was not very important in these discussions and I believe that Italy and Germany were constantly in touch with each other by telephone, and as soon as Germany had decided to enter into the pact Italy would be obliged to do so also. While there was no text drawn up, it naturally follows that because of my prior discussions with Ribbentrop, as soon as Germany acceded to Japan’s wishes, the actual drawing up of the pact would become a simple matter. Q. General, even before you received the instructions from your Foreign Office that came to you around the first, second, or third of December, for you as Ambassador to discuss this matter with the German Government, had not there existed some sort of understanding between the Japanese Government and the German Government that in the event of a war an arrangement such as was perfected in the No Separate Peace Pact would be agreed to between the two Governments? A. None at all. There are some things relative to that that might be of interest to you. Q. You may state those things now. A. I believe that Germany at the time the United States-Japanese conflict started was extremely 160